Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Indietracks interview #17: Shrag

Another week nearer the festival, and if you're anything like us, you've been staring blankly out of the window at work/school/college dreaming of steam trains and clicking on the stage times bit of the Indietracks website just to marvel at the spectacular number of bands Stuart's managed to book this year.

We're sure female-fronted Brighton five piece Shrag don't need too much introduction. In fact, if memory serves, their latest single Lost Dog got a glowing write up in the Guardian Guide among other places recently. (As indeed did the festival itself, hee! We're in their The Guardian's top ten things to do at this year's music festivals, next to The Mighty Boosh!) Anyway, SoundsXP described Shrag as fantastic post-punk pop with an extra crunchy pop topping. Formed in the summer of 2003, this art collective side-project write songs about their love for Mark E Smith and their hate of the Teenage Pregnancy scene. Their singles ‘Talk to the Left’ and 'Lost Dog' are out on Where It’s At Is Where You Are Records, and a mini-album ‘Six Songs’ was released in 2007. We're delighted to be joined by the band's singer Helen...

Hi Helen, Indietracks is a pretty unique venue - have you played anywhere unusual in the past? .

We went to America and Canada once as a kind of holiday and to play some gigs. We had some shows booked in NY but when we got there they were cancelled 'cos of the other bands being ill or something. We got all depressed and desperate 'cos we really wanted to play NY, and so we somehow managed to get ourselves on the bill for a Brooklyn show and a Manhattan one. They were two of the strangest shows we've ever played. The Brooklyn one was in a disused diner which only had two walls and was next to a sewage treatment plant, and the Manhattan one was at the Cake Shop which is lovely but we were 'headlining' an acoustic singer-songwriter night where everyone sat in silence along the walls while we played the worst show of our lives.

Do any band members have any particular skills, hobbies or claims to fame you wish to share?

Shrag once appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In the audience. Also, we are very good at fitting lots of people into one Travelodge room.

What's going to be on your compilation tapes as you travel down to Indietracks?

Crazy in Love by Beyonce.

What attracted you to play the Indietracks festival?

BANDS ON TRAINS!!!

Thanks Helen. Here's hoping the good people at Travelodge don't catch up with you anytime soon. And as ever, we're very pleased to offer you a free song from the band.

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Indietracks is an annual indiepop festival that takes place at a 1950s steam railway in Derbyshire, UK every July.

The festival has been running since 2007. Bands playing in previous years have included Camera Obscura, Edwyn Collins, Teenage Fanclub, Veronica Falls, The Wedding Present, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Pastels, Allo Darlin', White Town, The Hidden Cameras, Art Brut, Still Corners, The Vaselines, Summer Camp, Emmy The Great, The Primitives, Bis, Slow Club, Jeffrey Lewis, Helen Love, Au Revoir Simone and hundreds more artists from across the globe.